America’s Godly Heritage: Restoring America

The media and others have for years undertaken a concentrated effort to misinform the American public by rewriting America’s Judeo-Christian history. The motto at the heart of the American experiment “in God we trust” has been exchanged for “in Man we trust.”

America’s Godly Heritage Rewriting History

The last three generations of Americans simply have not been told the truth about American history as its Christian heritage has been disparaged.

For example, ask most Americans if the “separation of church and state” is in our Constitution, and they will answer yes. You can scour the Constitution of the United States, and you will NOT find the phrase, “separation of church and state” or anything close to it.

In the Constitution of the Soviet Union, however, the doctrine of the separation of Church and State is found: “In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church in the U.S.S.R. is separated from the State, and the school from the church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of anti-religious propaganda is recognized for all citizens” (Article 124). Article Twelve of the 1918 Soviet Constitution decrees that no church or religious organization “shall enjoy the rights of judicial person.” Instruction of children under age 18 in religious matters, whether in public or private, is against the law.

The concept of separation of church and state might be implied by the First Amendment which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” It says nothing about the “separation of church and state.” And, even if you accept the principle of the separation of church and state being implied by the First Amendment, it’s implication is not there to protect Americans from religion, it is there to protect religious Americans from the government.

In their desire to promote their philosophy using the power of government, many today want to alter America’s Christian heritage, remove religion from its history, and replace it with the Soviet doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Their desire is not to safeguard denominational neutrality by the state as the Founders intended, it is to eradicate every vestige of religion from our public institutions.

The Educational Establishment

One reason we have lost so many of our religious freedoms is that the educational establishment has worked hard to eliminate our knowledge of the Judeo-Christian heritage of America. The facts nonetheless reveal the true convictions of our founders. Without question, they believed that although no one Christian denomination should dominate the nation, the principles of the Bible and Christianity should underlie our government and American education as well.

“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists but by Christians, not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ.” – Patrick Henry

“Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.” – U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Jay

“The liberties we talk about defending today were established by men who took their conceptions of man from the great central religious tradition of Western civilization [Christianity], and the liberties we inherit can almost certainly not survive the abandonment of that tradition. The decay of decency in the modern age, the rebellion against law and good faith, the treatment of human beings as things, as mere instruments of power and ambition, is without a doubt the consequence of the decay of the belief in man as someone more than an animal animated by highly conditioned reflexes and chemical reactions. For unless man is something more than that, he has no rights that anyone is bound to respect, and there are no limitations upon his conduct which he is bound to obey. This is the forgotten foundation of democracy.” [James Reston, “Faith of Our Fathers, Living Still?” The New York Times, April 2, 1969]

Our children’s history books are being rewritten so they no longer hear the truth about the tremendous influence of religious faith on America’s founding fathers, on the great documents they drafted to establish a true republic based, on the critical tripod of liberty, life, and family. The revisionist history being taught now is devoid of any reference to the Christian faith of our Founding Fathers as the old stories, the old way that American history was taught, was revised to reflect a more politically correct, homogenized and multicultural perspective.

Words like duty and honor and country have fallen out of vogue, and the stories of the Christian faith of men like George Washington and Patrick Henry and Noah Webster and so many others, Daniel Webster, Andy Jackson, Chief Justice John Marshall – magnificent Christians – these stories are simply left out.

While many may squabble over who among the founding fathers was a Christian, no knowledgeable historian of early American history can deny the fact that the concept of a Creator God who endowed His creation with “unalienable rights” was an essential underpinning of the American experiment. Indeed, the Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These rights were derived not from a government that was transitory, but from a Governor who was eternal. It was the role of government to defend these rights and not dilute or remove them.

The revisionists extend their influence outside the classroom as well into nearly every segment of American life. Descriptions and tours of the nation’s capitol fail to point out that the Ten Commandments are inscribed in the marble of the United States Supreme Court, that there is a beautiful stained glass window in the U.S. Capitol depicting President George Washington kneeling in prayer, and that at the top of the Washington Monument – the highest point in the nation’s capital is embedded a plaque which boldly proclaims in Latin, “Praise Be Unto God.”

Arbitrary Law

In the 1892 Supreme Court ruling in Church of the Holy Trinity vs. U.S. (citing 87 precedents), “Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of Mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.” Throughout history, the U.S. Supreme Court continually cited previous cases in order to maintain our Christian Constitution. However, in 1962, for the first time in American history, the court cited no previous cases and ruled in Engel vs. Vitale that; because of Separation of Church and State, the government needed to be separated from Christian principles. So, the simple school prayer, “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon thee and we beg thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country” became unconstitutional and the eradication of Christianity from public institutions began.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. [Isaiah 5:20]

The Supreme Court, the President, or Congress do not shoulder the entire blame for these profound changes in the American cultural fabric. Far from it. Indeed, past generations of Christians and other religionists who were not involved in society or who sat silently by as the culture embraced the secular worldview are also greatly responsible.

Restoring America

The future of America will either be a national revival or it’s total destruction. We’re on the edge now of real national self-destruction. The past few generations of Americans have witnessed the collapse of moral and ethical values unlike any time in our history. We’re looking at the very strong probability of economic collapse, unless there is a tremendous change. We’re going to spend ourselves, tax ourselves into total oblivion.

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. [2 Chronicles 7:14]

The essence of what God is requiring of the Christians in America is repentance. If we Christians think that simply by political involvement we’re going to turn the country around, we’re crazy. If we think that we can adopt an antagonistic triumphalism that says we’re going to get organized and throw all the bad guys out and take over, we will be brought face to face with our own sinfulness.

We must recover the original American vision and we must put into practice 2 Chronicles 7:14. Our First Continental Congress understood this concept as is evident in the words of John Jay.

What we need is a Christian nation – the only alternative is a pagan nation. By “Christian nation,” I don’t mean that everyone is forced to be a Christian or forced to go to church or to believe in God. People are free to be Buddhists or atheists. The job of government is not to convert or force conversion to any kind of faith. The job of the government is to do for the people what they can’t do for themselves. And the job of bringing people to faith belongs to the private citizens, the churches, the synagogues and the religious leaders of our nation. That separation should always be kept. What I mean by a Christian nation is a nation whose laws are self-consciously built on the laws and principles of the Bible.

Our nation was founded on the principles laid out by the God of the Bible and we’re saying ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! Where there is no foundation, there are no laws and what results is anarchy brought forth by moral relativism. Their way has failed. The time has come for us to take back that which once was and let the healing begin.

“Let us look forward to the time when we can take the flag of our country and nail it below the Cross, and there let it wave as it waved in the olden times, and let us gather around it an inscribed for our motto: “Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever,” and exclaim, Christ first, our country next!” — Andrew Johnson